Reptile is a character in the Mortal Kombat series of video games. In Mortal Kombat (the original), he was a secret character that could only be accessed in one special way. On the bridge stage, you had to wait for a shadow to fly accross the moon. This didn't happen very often. If the shadow flew accross the moon, then you had to defeat your opponent with 2 flawless rounds and then perform your finishing move. Reptile had the moves of Sub-Zero and Scorpion, but was twice as fast and twice as strong. You got a million points or something for beating him. In Mortal Kombat 2 and 3 he was a playable character. He had some cool moves. He could spit acid, throw an energy ball that caused the opponent to be throwen towards him, and he could also turn invisible.

Reptiles are remarkable creatures. They’ve survived for millions of years. There’s about 6 500 species in all, and have adapted to the changing world, and still survive today on every continent except Antarctica. All reptiles have scales, made from keratin, the same material found in your finger nails and hair. Though many people believe so, newts and salamanders aren’t reptiles, but amphibians. Being cold-blooded, and their body heat depending on their surroundings, they tend to flourish more in warmer environments. Most reptiles lay eggs, but some are born live.

There are about four different kinds of reptiles; crocodilians, snakes, lizards, turtles and tortoises.

Crocodilians can remain underwater for over an hour, and they are strong swimmers. They use their powerful tails to propel them forward, but when floating, only the eyes, ears and nostrils are positioned above water.

Alligator: This is a very fierce and aggressive animal. It will attack large animals, and is very dangerous to humans. It has a rounded snout, at the end of a slightly triangular head. An alligator’s teeth rest on the inside of its jaw. Alligator babies look exactly like their parents, except smaller. When the babies are small, the mom will carry them on her back, or sometimes in her mouth! When babies are born, they’re about 12 inches long, but will soon grow to about 20 feet long, and weigh as much as 2 000 pounds!

Crocodiles: Crocodiles have an even more triangular head then alligators, and aren’t quite as big. Like all crocodilians, they swallow their food whole. Then what are all those teeth for? If their prey is too large, they’ll use their teeth to grab it, then pull it underwater until it drowns. After it has drowned, they rip it into tiny pieces so they can swallow it. Crocodiles often loose their teeth when hunting, that is why it continually grows new ones. One crocodile can go through about 50 sets of teeth in a lifetime!

Gharial: The gharial has a slender snout and a bulb like nose. It has about 160 teeth, which are all the same size. The gharial eats fish up to 20 feet long! Though fierce-looking, this endangered crocodilian is really quite shy and timid.

Snakes: These are interesting, multi-patterned colorful creatures. Though many believe it is true, snakes are not slimy, but just have shiny skin, which they shed regularly. There are about 2 700 species of snake alive today, making their homes on land, underwater, underground, and in trees.

Defences: Snakes are predators, but they are still hunted. That is why many are equipped with some sort of protection. Some snakes, like the harmless hognosed snake, find it easier to protect themselves without having to move. Like a dog, it turns over and plays dead. But many snakes aren’t so risky, they have themselves a pare of really sharp teeth. There are about 800 species of poisonous snakes. Only 250 of which are dangerous to humans.

King Cobra: This 18-foot terror is the longest poisonous snake in the world, and has venom strong enough to kill an elephant. When threatened, the King Cobra will raise its body off the ground, and spread the loose skin on its neck into a “hood” shape several times wider than its body. Baby cobras are just as aggressive. With tiny fangs and venom, they will strike while they’re still hatching from their shells.

Have you ever seen or heard of the trick where someone plays a flute, and a snake comes out of a basket? This is not because the snake hears the music, snakes don’t have ears! They are disturbed by the vibrations from the flute.

Lizards: Lizards are by far the largest group of reptiles, approximately 3 500 species in all. Some lizards don’t have legs, and look like small snakes…or large worms! Lizards range from an inch-long gecko, to a ten foot Komodo dragon.

Iguanas: Iguanas come in many colors, shapes and sizes. Some like to live in groups, sometimes you may see over 40 of them sunning themselves in forests and desserts where they live. They live in Central and South America, and some have adapted to living in salt water. Many people have iguanas as pets, and many people don’t realize exactly how much work they are.

Komodo Dragons: These fierce 350 pound lizards are found only on a few small islands in Indonesia. They are the largest living lizard in the world. When feeding, the Komodo dragons jaw works so hard, that it needs new sets of teeth each year. It has been known to attack and kill humans, but normally preys on deer and wild boar.

Tortoises and turtles: Turtles and tortoises are the only reptiles with shells, there are about 250 species in their category. Their shells have protected them so well that turtles have remained practically unchanged on earth, for over 200 million years! But a shell does not protect from everything, they tend to live in warmer climates.

Tortoise: Tortoises, unlike turtles, usually stay out of water their whole lives. The Gallopagos tortoise can grow up to 4 feet, and get up to 600 pounds in weight. They have strong thick legs and a sturdy shell. Tortoises live longer then any other animal. They have been known to live up to 150 years!

Turtles: What does the name turtle mean? The name turtle refers to animals that live in fresh-water lakes, rivers, ponds and streams. And, turtles that spend time on land are called tortoises. Turtles that live in the ocean are called Sea Turtles. Their shells are made out of either a layer of hard leathery skin, or plates called scutes. The pattern keeps getting larger as the turtle grows, and each species has its own distinct pattern.

* While executing this move, the fact that you're crouching prevents you from being hit by certain projectiles
** Of course, you cannot do a babality or friendship if you've done any punching in the winning round

Yes, 3 connected squares, shaped like an "L". It's interesting because of a way you can tile the plane with it.

The easiest tesselation of the plane with copies of the reptile is to use 2 copies to form a 3×2 rectangle:

+--+--+
| 1| 1|
+--+--+
|2 | 1|
+--+--+
|2 |2 |
+--+--+

Then use many of these 3×2 rectangles to tile the plane, in any of several boring ways.

But the reptile can also be used to get an aperiodic tiling of the plane (i.e., a tiling which never repeats itself). To do this, first put 4 reptiles together to get a new reptile which is twice the size:

By taking an appropriate limiting process, you get a tiling of the plane. One way to do this is to take the current reptile (of size 2k×2k) as tile #1 in the next reptile (of size 2k+1×2k+1). This lets you fill in the "hole" left; the resulting sequence of tiles grows rapidly to cover the entire plane. In fact, you can chose many different limiting processes; it would seem you can get 2ℵ0 (the cardinality of the continuum) different tilings using the reptile!

It's also fairly easy (though tedious) to see that the result is aperiodic. The idea behind the proof is to show that if the tiling has period (i,j) (that is, if moving the tiling i squares right and j up results in the same tiling) then it also has period (i/2,j/2). Since i and j must be integers, this is clearly impossible.

The reptile is a single tile which gives an aperiodic tiling. However, it also gives periodic tilings of the plane. Other aperiodic tilings are known -- the most famous is uses Penrose tiles -- but require more than one tile. It is an open question if there exists a single tile which admits only aperiodic tilings.

His friends and family hated her. They would not so much as speak to her. So many times she had left him high and dry, crying in his beer. So many times everything would go wrong. She always took the brunt of the blame because her deeds were more obvious to the naked eye. She insulted him publicly. She borrowed money she never intended to repay. She would leave on the night train to home and he would be reduced to a quivering pile of flesh on the living room floor.

Had you coiled around my arm
How could you ever know
How I loved your diamond eyes
But that was long ago

The key difference was that he was always repentant. She never offered apologies or sought forgiveness. The past was made up of wreckage from her wake that she did not care to recognize. She never took responsibility for anything she did and yet felt other people owed her the apologies. Her life was too hard. Her life was all that mattered. She honestly did not care who hated her except to give the reasons why she did not care.

The patterns of life repeat forever until we break them. Eventually we are reduced to a skipping record and no one wants to listen any longer. If you continue the patterns you lose track of your position on the road. The shadows begin to resemble figures in the light. You never find anything other than the endless story of sorrow already experienced that you are unwilling to give up. You let it happen to yourself again and again. Never blame the one who hurts you when you willingly run to the trough to feed again.